In the next few days it looks like Virginia and and parts of Maryland are going to get hit some big snow. I hope it doesn't touch us as I am so done with the cold. I'm also done with paying for oil to feed the 100 year old converter coal furnace which keeps our house a balmy 60 degrees.
But there might be some good with the weather for the striped bass. Horse winters and a nice spring can mean a solid spawn, which the striped bass are in desperate need of. As we look at the striped bus numbers we have plenty, well a good amount of SSB out there, it's the younger ones that we don't see.
The question is the location of the snow. We see down near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay are the highest totals, near 20 inches. That snow pack will melt and just head ou to sea in the spring. The James, York, Rappahannock Rivers may fare better as the snow totals are up in their headwaters region. The Potomac, a spawning powerhouse of a river, well depending on who you talk to, is seeing it's greatest accumulations below Washington D.C, so that melt won't get down and deep in the earth and feed the river like if the heaviest snow was above D.C.
Who know's what it all means for the striped bass. Here on the Delaware River it' running about 7,800 cfs, which is good, but that only after the deluge of rain we had over last weekend. We need things to be steady, not extreme, for the fish, and the fishing, to be good.